rt; and even
ordinary running or falling water may be sufficiently rendered, by
observing careful curves of projection with a dark ground, and
breaking a little white over it, as we see done with judgment and
truth by Ruysdael. But to paint the actual play of hue on the
reflective surface, or to give the forms and fury of water when it
begins to show itself--to give the flashing and rocket-like velocity
of a noble cataract, or the precision and grace of the sea wave, so
exquisitely modeled, tho so mockingly transient--so mountainous in its
form, yet so cold-like in its motion--with its variety and delicacy of
color, when every ripple and wreath has some peculiar passage of
reflection upon itself alone, and the radiating and scintillating
sunbeams are mixt with the dim hues of transparent depth and dark rock
below;--to do this perfectly is beyond the power of man; to do it even
partially, has been granted to but one or two, even of those few who
have dared to attempt it....

Now, the fact is, that there is hardly a roadside pond or pool which
has not as much landscape _in_ it as above it. It is not the brown,
muddy, dull thing we suppose it to be; it has a heart like ourselves,
and in the bottom of that there are the boughs of the tall trees, and
the blades of the shaking grass, and all manner of hues, of variable,
pleasant light out of the sky; nay, the ugly gutter, that stagnates
over the drain bars, in the heart of the foul city, is not altogether
base; down in that, if you will look deep enough, you may see the
dark, serious blue of far-off sky, and the passing of pure clouds. It
is at your own will that you see in that despised stream, either the
refuse of the street, or the image of the sky--so it is with almost
all other things that we unkindly despise....

Stand for half an hour beside the fall of Schaffhausen, on the north
side where the rapids are long, and watch how the vault of water first
bends, unbroken, in pure, polished velocity, over the arching rocks at
the brow of the cataract, covering them with a dome of crystal twenty
feet thick--so swift that its motion is unseen except when a foam
globe from above darts over it like a falling star; and how the trees
are lighted above it under all their leaves, at the instant that it
breaks into foam; and how all the hollows of that foam burn with green
fire like so much shattering chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon,
startling you with its white flash, a jet of